As a photographer I have a very difficult time when others take my picture. Whether this a control issue I'm not sure. The work that I have been doing in Japan was to photograph the hybridization of my children, myself and my wife. I made attempts to do some self portraits in one particular Japanese hot spa facility with no success. For this picture I thought that it was only appropriate that the Yunessun facility photographer did a portrait of me with my family. I wanted to de-skill most of the process. As with many portraits the truth is not always evident. For this one I intentionally made myself look bad, with no shirt (they provided all men with beach tops), stomach sticking out and looking strangely. I was one of only 16 gaijin in this facility and I wanted to externalize my anxieties. I wanted to take the roll of the Ugly American.
According to wikipedia:
Ugly American is an epithet used to refer to perceptions of loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless and ethnocentric behavior of American citizens mainly abroad, but also at home. Although the term is usually associated with or applied to travelers and tourists, it also applies to US corporate businesses in the international arena.
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